Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo Page B

inside.”
    “Miss Nee?” said Louisiana again. She stepped farther into the office. Beverly and Raymie followed her. The floor and the walls of the garage were covered in green shag carpet. The ceiling was green-shag-carpeted, too. Baton-twirling trophies were everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of them gleaming in the green dimness so that the garage looked like the cave of Ali Baba. Against the far wall, there was a desk with a nameplate on it. The nameplate read IDA NEE, STATE CHAMPION .
    Above the desk, there was a moose head.
    “Boy, if there was ever a place that needed to be sabotaged,” said Beverly, “this is it. Ida Nee acts like she’s champion of everything. But some of these trophies aren’t even hers. See this one?” She pointed. “This one belongs to my mother.”
    Louisiana squinted at the trophy. “It says Rhonda Joy,” she said. “Who’s Rhonda Joy?”
    “That was my mother’s name. Before she married my father.”
    “You could have been Beverly Joy!” said Louisiana.
    “No,” said Beverly. “I couldn’t have.”
    “Your mother was a baton twirler?” said Raymie.
    “My mother was a baton twirler and a beauty queen,” said Beverly. “But who cares? Now she’s not either one of those things. Now she’s just someone who works in the Belknap Tower gift shop selling canned sunshine and rubber alligators.”
    “There’s a king’s ransom in here,” said Louisiana. “We could sell all these trophies and never have to worry about money again.”
    “These things are nothing but junk,” said Beverly.
    Raymie was listening to Beverly and Louisiana and also not listening to them. She was staring up at the moose head, and he was staring back at her.
    The moose had the saddest eyes of anyone she had ever seen.
    They looked like Mrs. Borkowski’s eyes.
    One time, when Raymie was cutting Mrs. Borkowski’s toenails, Mrs. Borkowski had asked Raymie a question. She had said, “Tell me, why does the world exist?”
    And Raymie had looked up at Mrs. Borkowski’s face, into her sad eyes, and said, “I don’t know.”
    “Exactly,” said Mrs. Borkowski. “You don’t know. No one knows. No one knows.”
    “What are you staring at?” said Beverly.
    “Nothing,” said Raymie. “It’s just that the moose looks sad.”
    “He’s dead,” said Beverly. “Of course he’s sad.”
    “But let’s not lose sight of the real problem,” said Louisiana, “which is that Ida Nee is missing.”
    “Duh,” said Beverly.
    “Maybe we should look in the house,” said Louisiana.
    Raymie stared at the moose.
    Phhhhtttt. Tell me, why does the world exist?
    “Come on,” said Beverly. “You have to keep moving.” She put her hand on Raymie’s shoulder and turned her around, back toward the door, where the light from the outside world was coming in.
    Raymie blinked.
    “Just keep moving,” said Beverly again.
    And Raymie walked toward the open door.

They knocked on the front door of Ida Nee’s house and rang the doorbell, and when no one answered, Louisiana said, “Maybe she needs help. Maybe the Three Rancheros should come to her rescue.”
    “Ha,” said Beverly.
    “Maybe you should break and enter,” said Louisiana.
    “Now, there’s an idea,” said Beverly. And she got out her pocketknife and picked the lock on Ida Nee’s front door.
    “Miss Nee?” shouted Louisiana. “It’s us, the Three Rancheros.”
    From somewhere deep inside the house, there came the sound of singing and also the sound of snoring.
    Louisiana went around the corner first. Beverly followed her. Raymie followed Beverly.
    “She’s asleep,” whispered Louisiana, turning back to them. “Look!” She pointed at Ida Nee, who was stretched out on a plaid couch. One arm was hanging almost to the floor, and with the other arm, she was holding her baton close to her chest. She had on her white boots.
    There was a country music song playing on the radio. It was somebody singing about how somebody else was leaving. So